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David Hume writes "The Los Angeles Times has a story about the two-year University of Tulsa Cyber Corps Program. About '85% of the 260 graduates since 2003 have gone to the NSA, which students call "the fraternity," or the CIA, which they call "the sorority."' 'Other graduates have taken positions with the FBI, NASA and the Department of Homeland Security.' According to the University of Tulsa website, two programs — the National Science Foundation's Federal Cyber Service: Scholarship for Service and the Department of Defense's (DOD's) Information Assurance Scholarship Program — provide scholarships to Cyber Corps students."

The fusion centers, black ops, the public/private databases, all the new suburban office blocks with tight security filled with a million bight new faces.
The NSA is growing very fast and pointing its efforts inwards.
This will result in two systems for the USA:
A Soviet system- a huge structure unable to deal with protesters, debt, hunger, riots, informants, cyber war, crumbling infrastructure and the massive optical, hardware and software data dumps per day on people of interest around the world.
Or they

What are you rambling about? Nowadays, most background checks are done from an office at the inquiring agency's headquarters. People who would be superb government agents are ruled out because of an arrest record, while complete losers are sometimes welcomed into the agency, because they have a clean record.

Interviews? A long time ago, when I was a young man, yes. Today, not so much.

All civilian background investigations are performed by the Office of Personnel Management in conjunction with the FBI. Home agencies can conduct additional checks, like a credit report inquiry, if that's not included as part of minimum BI performed by OPM for a specific level.

Re "done from an office at the inquiring agency's headquarters"
That gets you what? A person who got lucky and had his or her paper trail lost during some digital "upgrade"?
Some state court or college town was kind enough to seal a record due to family connections or other considerations?
An NGO or religion was kind enough to "settle" out of court the first few times?
Do you really think a foreign embassy will just work down a list of a few 100 cleared workers and see what can be "done from an office"...
T

What are you rambling about? Nowadays, most background checks are done from an office at the inquiring agency's headquarters. People who would be superb government agents are ruled out because of an arrest record, while complete losers are sometimes welcomed into the agency, because they have a clean record.

Interviews? A long time ago, when I was a young man, yes. Today, not so much.

REALLY? There was a time when the NSA and the CIA didn't care about an arrest record? Who knew? And who are these complete losers who are welcomed into the agency? Got examples? Or are you just making shit up because it's popular on Slashdot to make up random shit to malign the US government in every way possible?

Where did you read that? There is barely any information about the content of the course at the university 's website, under a very tacky "Do you have what it takes" [utulsa.edu] intro, a McGyver reference, a promise for a 90% chance of landing a men-in-black job, and how this awesome initiative has been picked up from the news. No real information about what you actually DO.

As with any position in federal service, you do what is asked of you. This isn't meant to sound trite; speaking as someone who has drawn paychecks from the military and has worked in the private sector in various information technology roles both before and after the DoD (and some gray in between), it's a reality that should be given serious thought. Take it for what it's worth, the primary point being that regardless of your job title, your first priority is your orders.

I have to say I disagree. One of my key values to my organization comes from my ability to state why a preferred course of action does not comply with the law, regulations, and requirements. My job is not (exclusively) to do what is asked of me; my job is to comply with the oath of office, to protect the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Now, it is true that being willing to say "No" can affect your career path. But it's also true that all the guys who have threatened

Interesting point, but my question was on the actual content of this program and how it is laid out: one can perhaps easily fit at least eight courses in two years, at this level. So what individual courses does this program have, and how many are they? How much math is involved, for example, and how about programming courses?

Each college offers its own coursework; there are hundreds of colleges certified as NSA centers of excellence; some of them are indeed excellent, and some of them are...not. The last time I checked out the Tulsa program, it emphasized teaching programming principles in java. Some programs have no coding requirements at all; they train you to be a policy specialist. Many, if not most, programs are very hard core in terms of technical requirements.

Tulsa is a pretty nice place.....big city with plenty to do....not a hick town by any stretch.....lot of nice lakes and forests to the Northeast (they call it Green Country), so lots of places to go if you are the outdoorsy type...
Tulsa is only an hours drive from me.....would be neat to check out that program to further my IT career, but they probably wouldn't take an old fart like me...;)

I joined the Cyber Corps in my Forties. Tulsa and I were talking quite a bit but eventually I wound up applying to another school instead. There are currently hundreds of schools across the United States that participate in the Cyber Corps program.

I just gotta say, what kind of boring life did you lead that you could pass a background check in your 40s.

It one thing to be pass at 20 when you've had no time to get into any fun, but 40? I could never remember all the crimes I have committed. Halfway thought the polygraph the examiner would just start smacking me, 'you did what? Why are you wasting my time!'

Tyler Durden could pass if he just fessed up? What if I fessed up to an ongoing crime?

e.g. My most recent fun: Armature psych ops against paranoid political types (fleabaggers, teabaggers, code pink, EFF etc etc). Flying a scale model predator drone over their protests. Feeds their paranoia, makes them foam at the mouth, more irrelevant. The key is putting plant into the crowd so the drone is spotted on schedule, right as it goes out of good camera range. Not criminal (I'm careful of who's airspace I fly

I don't have to commit crimes to have fun. Just the occasional crime kind of happens along the way: Pirating cable/satellite/wireless. Downloading Warez. Collecting and distributing a substantial 'borrowed' music collection. Growing 'medicine' in the yard and indoors (pre and post 215). Putting non-street legal parts on the street. Street racing. Modifying public art. Building and firing machine guns, large 'fire crackers' and missiles. Distilling strong drink without license or tax. Manufacturing zip guns

trouble is you don't want 100% 20 year olds straight out of Uni the Security Service and SIS used to prefer to recruit older people who had more of a track record - and you can make more of a measured judgement.

This article is very poorly researched. There are Cyber Corps graduates in every federal agency. You don't have to work for the CIA / NSA if you don't want to (but you do have to apply for jobs at other agencies; the NSA actively recruits Cyber Corps graduates so if that's the only job offer you get, you have to take it or pay the money back.

Bunker where people won't want to go? Try going to an embassy in an area recently torn by war and having the state department turn down your requests for more security on the anniversary of 9/11 when there are known Al Qeada agents operating in the area.

This is something people should be giving serious thought to. If the government sends people over seas, will they do it right and safely or will they forget there might be a danger in some places and leave you to die?

The Tulsa program recruits students from all over the United States. Each of the colleges certified by the NSA as a Center of Excellence has different strong points; some are very focused on coding, for example, other on forensics or policy. My experience with the program is that is a reasonable mix of liberals and conservatives.

I've lived in Oklahoma my entire life. I know very well how "red" my state is, and isn't. One very selective statistic about a national election held once every four years tells you very little about a state or its people. I suppose you think all Vermonters are flaming socialists because they keep re-electing Bernie Sanders.

Wow, good ol' Cyber Corp! I entered the program (the one in Tulsa, it's also at other schools, but Tulsa is the "heart" of the program) in January 2003 and had my MS in Comp Sci in 3 semesters, graduating in May 2004.

You're able to go to school full-time because they pay for your books, tuition, AND give you a stipend for housing/food/living either on or off campus. And that buck goes pretty far in Tulsa (I think my 2 bed, 2 bath appt was $550/month).

I went through the NSF-version of the program. The DoD version was for military personnel only (I think?) who wanted to get a better degree.

I was one of the few that didn't go to NSA. Wasn't comfortable with being a super-spook (especially during the Bush years), so I went to a more "benign" agency. You MUST make sure that you'll be able to get a security clearance before you sign up, because if you get selected for the program, go through it, and then can't get a job because you're not clearable, you owe ALL the money back (like $40K or so). However, I had one arrest with a suspended sentence (minor pot possession) and was able to get a Secret clearance with no trouble, though YMMV.

TU (University of Tulsa) has had an Information Assurance program since loooong before it was popular (very early 90s?), so they've had time to build up talent and are VERY well connected in terms of getting you a job. You're pretty much guaranteed a job at NSA. I know several folks who went there and enjoy the work. I know several others who didn't and left for the private sector after their "time as up".

It's a "scholarship for service" system for paying back your tuition/stipend. If it takes you 3 semesters to get your degree, you have to work for the Fed Gov for 18 months to be fully "paid back". Then you can quit the Gov and go work for a contractor and make big $ since you're already cleared. I stayed in Fed service for 2.5 years and then went back to the private sector.

Feel free to ask me any other questions. It was a great deal and I'm so happy I was able to get a free MS out of it.

I work at a privately held FFRDC which hires a lot of scholarship for service graduates. I had no idea such a program even existed until I was hired a few months ago. It sounds like a great way to get a masters degree paid for (I graduated with a PhD which was funded by an NSF grant, but MS students are rarely that lucky). Like you said, a lot of the SFS graduates put in their two years and leave although FFRDC pay and benefits are significantly better than what the feds offer.

No, I am not a coder on any significant level. You should definitely check out a few schools. Tulsa is not much of a coding program, but they do teach you principles in java; Purdue has an interdisciplinary program that is heavy on programming theory but you can get out with little to no programming; Syracuse has a pure policy program where I think no coding is required at all.

Tuition is not an issue with the program (at least at the Master's level). It's a free ride, with a monthly stipend. The program is designed to allow students with families and mortgages to focus on school full time. No agency sponsorship is required; you compete for a slot just like a regular student. In some schools you can even design your own program (that's what I did; I could attend any class in any discipline, as long as I justified it with my advisor). I attended one of the top engineering schools in the country, and got paid to do it. Your only obligation is to seek employment from the government. if you don't get a job offer on graduation, you can take your degree and go. The downside is that if you only have one job offer, and you don't take it, you have to pay the money back.

Also, you don't have a clue about what the folks who work for the US government do for you.

Also, you don't have a clue about what the folks who work for the US government do for you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah "We're from the government, and we're here to help".

Please stop doing stuff for us. It's destroying the country.

I know some of what the people who work for the US government do TO us. That's way too much as it is, thanks.

If those you speak of in the US government want more trust from we the people, they desperately need to focus their efforts on exposing and destroying corruption and betrayal by US government officials and politicians.

Excellent argument. The government-employed medical doctors doing cutting edge research developing treatments no private sector company will touch because there's not enough profit in it: Clearly corrupt. Those firefighters who parachute in to disaster areas with nothing but a shovel and desire to save whoever they can: Obviously corrupt. People battling for meaningful financial reform against incredibly powerful opponents: Corruption incarnate. The only moral choice is to do nothing; anybody who says they'

Excellent argument. The government-employed medical doctors doing cutting edge research developing treatments no private sector company will touch because there's not enough profit in it: Clearly corrupt. Those firefighters who parachute in to disaster areas with nothing but a shovel and desire to save whoever they can: Obviously corrupt. People battling for meaningful financial reform against incredibly powerful opponents: Corruption incarnate. The only moral choice is to do nothing; anybody who says they're in government to try and do the right thing is obviously lying.

Nice straw-man arguments there. Too bad I didn't argue any of those. I'm sure that the old Soviet government and Iran's government also did/does some good things. Doesn't make them good guys, and neither does it make the US government good guys.

Almost every single thing you mentioned could be done at the State and local levels without the Feds except a national financial reform, and nothing you listed requires domestic surveillance (digital or otherwise) of the NSA/CIA/FBI variety.

I joined the Cybercorps in its first year of operation after two decades in an unrelated field; the reason you've never heard of the program is it was scheduled to be announced on Sept. 12, 2011. There are probably hundreds of schools certified as Centers of Excellence by the NSA; some of them are top notch, some of them not so much. I've been working for the government for nearly a decade now: Operations, compliance, and even teaching. Happy to discuss. Here's a link to the official Cyber Corps Web site, run by the Office of Personnel Management: https://www.sfs.opm.gov/ [opm.gov]

Systems housing government data are required to meet certain minimum protective requirements, every system also needs to be certified as initially complying with those requirements by an independent third party (i.e., not the system owner), with a re-examination every three years. It's called "Certification and Accreditation." if you want to understand more about the requirements, look for a document called NIST 800-53. It's basically a penetration test.

I am actually not a spook, though I was recruited by one of the spooky agencies. i chose the non-spook life and I don't regret it. I have a number of friends who are spooks and they are the last defense against political appointees who try to engage in all kinds of prohibited activities. The nice thing about being a government employee is that we get to take an oath pledging us to protect, not the government, not a party, but the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. How do you think you became aware of the excesses of the past? It's because some low-level employee discovered some political hack set up an illegal program and let somebody -- a member of Congress, a law enforcement agency, or a newspaper -- about what was going on. You'd be shocked at how many liberals work for the NSA.

I have a number of friends who are spooks and they are the last defense against political appointees who try to engage in all kinds of prohibited activities.

My anecdotal experience contradicts yours. I trained as a Cryptologic Technician - Interpretative in the Navy (one of the SIGINT positions that ties into NSA). My fellow sailors considered protection of Americans' privacy to be a nuisance to their job, not a principle to uphold, and they felt it was OK to violate it as long as no one got caught. A few

I would agree that active duty enlisted tend to be "redder" than average. Also, the time frame you're describing is quite interesting as sounds like it was just about the time that the NSA had been publicly identified as breaking the law and new restrictions were put into place (which is probably what the Chief was bellyaching about). But my experience post reform is that the vast majority of people at the NSA take the prohibition on domestic spying very seriously.

My experience was late 1990s, early millennium. By that time, Carter's attempts to limit interception of American communications had long since passed away (that they had more of a free rein in recent years nonetheless did not stop the aforementioned chiefs from rueing his memory).

I was very happy to see that the European Parliament's ECHELON report, which appeared right about the time I left the military and the United States in 2001, brought some troubling developments to public knowledge, but sadly the events of September 11 pushed it under the radar entirely. After September 11, I have no faith at all that the US is not pursuing interception of everyone and everything. And from keeping in touch with some of my shipmates who signed for another hitch or two after me, I can only assume from their attitudes that the privacy of Americans is less respected than ever.

They would have all benefited from being forced out of their comfort zone in college.

That said, I've also worked with doctorate level air thieves.

Math and communication skills are areas that the 'naturals' often skip. Also their egos are often fucking out of control as they have not spent enough time with their intellectual peers. Nothing teaches you humility like running into subjects that force you to work at 100% (true 100% is fucking hard to maintain, 110% is only arrived at with 25%(Mon-Thurs)+10%(Friday)). 'Natural genius's' tend to ignore subjects that threaten their self image, often with a rationalization: 'I don't need to understand K domain, I'll go back and study it if it ever comes up.' It never comes up, their ego is safe. Not that they are alone in this. Zaphod (para) 'If their is anything on this spaceship more important then my ego, I want it taken out and shot'.

The security software I developed runs on tens of thousands of web sites. I don't have a college degree. Some might say I have a natural talent. Yet, to really be the best I can, to be an NSA level expert, schooling would really help I'm sure. Natural talent and self-study has gotten me to a certain point, but I'm sure studying with other bright people would take me up a notch or two, even if that's not my comfort zone.

To recap: You do *not* have to work for the NSA (that article was awful). You do have to work for the government, but you only have to do that for two years (the amount of time you're in school under the program). A masters degree from Carnegie Mellon would cost you something like six figures. And after that all you have is a degree with no experience. Cyber Corps offers you a *free* degree *plus* a monthly stipend, *plus* a virtually guaranteed job, meaning in four years you have no debt, a solid degree an

What a fascinating way for the US to innovate its way out of stagnation: with incentives to joint the secret police!

There's never been a an economic miracle of productivity and social rewards, like that which has come from diverting skilled students away from developing a market - and into the state security apparatus.

Or, maybe not?

And I suppose you'd rather those people become a quant making algorithms for high-speed trading? Let them be/do what they want to be/do. You don't have to become a spook if you don't want to anymore than you are being forced into military service. I'm not into feeding trolls, but you aren't seeing the bigger picture; that being, there will always be people that want to do this type of work and utterly believe they are doing the most patriotic thing they can, next to being in the military or becoming a pub

To reiterate: The Cyber Corps program can and is being used by undergraduates; it will take care of two years of your 4 year degree; if you've got the ability to get your undergrad degree in three years, you'd only have to pay for one year if you were in the Cyber Corps. And if you were to go into college with no debt and no significant obligations -- like a car payment -- you could probably make enough from your stipend and summer jobs to take care of that one year.